How to Promote a New Blog Post: 15+ Trusty Techniques to Try

by Adam Oakley | Feb 8, 2019 | Blogging

You put lots of hard work into creating that new blog post. It cost you real money, time, and effort. ⏳

Now, how can you get serious return out of your content? 

Promote it.

Without a boost from a few smart, strategic promotion strategies, that blog won’t get traction beyond bare-bones SEO and organic shares. (Which could be significant by itself, but why settle?)

If you feel comfortable letting your blog hang out on the internet without any help, be prepared for a surge of activity followed by a quick decline. Your blog will limp along for a while until it’s forgotten entirely.

If, on the other hand, you want to give all your new blogs a fighting chance at getting read by a wider audience – not to mention a longer lifespan online – promotion is essential!

So, how to promote a new blog post in ways that actually get it noticed? Follow along as we share our best tips and techniques.

How to Promote a New Blog Post: Your Comprehensive Guide to Boosting Traffic and Engagement

1. Do These 5 Tactics BEFORE You Promote a New Blog Post

1. Make Your Blog the Best Version of Itself
2. Build Your Email List Using Lead Magnets
3. Optimize Your Blog Posts for Search
4. Promote a New Blog Post Internally
5. Build Relationships with Peers, Fans, Followers, and Customers

2. Promote a New Blog Post Using Email

1. Segment Your Email List and Target by Interests
2. Did You Mention a Specific Brand/Influencer in a Post? Email Them
3. Write Your Emails the Right Way

3. Promote a New Blog Post on Social Media

1. Use Instagram Stories
2. Cross-Post to Each Platform You’re On
3. Plug Your New Blog on Relevant Twitter Chats
4. Add the Link to Your New Blog on Your Profiles
5. Share Your New Blog Multiple Times on Fast-Moving Feeds
6. Use Those #Hashtags and DO @ People
7. Share Your New Blog to Your Social Media Groups and Communities

4. Promote a New Blog Post with Smart Tools

1. Use Quuu Promote or Zest
2. Curate Your Blog Posts in a Content Hub
3. Add Social Sharing Buttons to Your Posts

Do These 5 Tactics BEFORE You Promote a New Blog Post

So, you’re all ready to start learning how to promote a new blog post.

Hold on one second. There are a few foundations we need to cover first. Don’t skip these steps – they’ll help make blog promotion much, much easier.

1. Make Your Blog the Best Version of Itself

Content promotion will mean absolutely nothing if all you do is lead visitors to a subpar blog.

All the promotional tactics in the world can’t save mediocre content.

Why?

Quite simply, people don’t want to read, share, or engage with content that’s “eh.”

They may be lured to a blog that sucks because they won’t know it sucks until they land there. Once they find out, they’ll bounce away from the crappy blog as fast as they can. You’ll be no better off than you were before.

That’s why you MUST commit to creating the best blog this side of the internet. An amazing blog makes people want to stay, read, engage, and share. Plus:

Amazing content promotes itself!

A case study from Ahrefs nicely demonstrates this point. They regularly receive organic promotion from outside sources without any effort, like this Reddit post:

As they explain in the post, Ahrefs did absolutely nothing marketing-wise to get this kind of great P.R. – their readers love their content, and that love makes them WANT to share Ahref posts.

Simple logic, but something that a lot of people forget about when considering how to promote a new blog post.

Make sure your blog is amazing at the start, and organic promotion will follow.

2. Build Your Email List Using Lead Magnets

I can’t emphasize the importance of this next point enough:

Build your email list to create a built-in audience for your blog promotion.

According to the latest report from The Radicati Group, today there are over 3.9 billion people using email worldwide. That’s over half the population of the entire globe.

Not only is email widely used – it generates the most ROI per dollar spent out of any other marketing activity. (A Litmus study estimated that email is worth an average of $38 for every $1 spent.)

Your list, when you build it, is worth a TON. It’s a direct link to people who are interested in you/your brand, and thus the perfect channel for blog post promotion.

Next question: How do you build your email list?

Create lead magnets.

Lead magnets are golden nuggets of content that are high-value. You offer these as exclusive downloads for your audience in exchange for their name and email address. A truly high-quality lead magnet is well-written and packs in tons of helpful/valuable information.

Create lead magnets offering high-value information, then offer them to readers in exchange for their email address. Once you get their email – boom! – your list building has begun.

Once you have an email list, send out messages to it with links to your new blog posts. Done and done.

3. Optimize Your Blog Posts for Search

Besides blog promotion, don’t forget about SEO. It’s a major way to scoop up organic traffic to your blog posts from search engines like Google.

That said, a LOT more goes into proper SEO besides just inserting keywords in the right places. You need to think about factors like:

• Content quality
• Whether your content fulfills user search intent for your focus keyword
• Whether your blog showcases relevant expertise for the topics you’re covering
• Your site design and page-load speed
• Your use of links and sources in your blog
• And more

It’s important to get your SEO down before you think about how to promote a new blog post with other tactics. That’s because SEO is a passive way to draw more traffic and leads to your blog. Cover this base, draw in readers organically, and then hustle for more traffic actively using the other tactics we’ll cover in this post.

If you’re new to search engine optimization, read Moz’s comprehensive guide to get the lowdown.

4. Promote a New Blog Post Internally

Linking internally is one of the best ways to promote your content to people who already read your blog.

What do I mean by “linking internally”?

Basically, just that you include links to your other blogs inside your new blogs. This is what that looks like:

Inside this EW blog, the internal link takes you straight to a related post that further explains the concept of CDF.

As you can see, internal links in your blog posts are there to help your readers, first and foremost. Your links should be there to provide more information or further reading.

Secondly, and most importantly for blog promotion, those links also lead your readers on a journey through your website and content. It’s a great, free, easy way to promote your other blogs – old AND new.

5. Build Relationships with Peers, Fans, Followers, and Customers

What’s another foundational tactic to do before you learn how to promote a new blog post? Start building relationships online.

Connect with peers in your industry. Talk to your followers, fans, and customers on social media. Most of all, do it genuinely.

This, itself, is not about promoting your brand. It’s about forging friendships and building your network. If you start anywhere, start here.

Not only will you create a support system for yourself and your business, but you’ll also give yourself a built-in audience who will cheer you on when you start promoting new blogs and content.

Remember: These relationships aren’t one-sided! It’s important to give as much as you receive. Cheer on others in your network and industry, share posts, write comments, and engage. I guarantee you’ll get back every ounce of goodwill you put in.

How to Promote a New Blog Post Using Email

Now that we’ve gone over the basic steps to follow pre-promotion, it’s time to dive in. Get out there and promote your new blog posts, starting with email.

1. Segment Your Email List and Target by Interests

Remember that email list you built? It’s time to put it into action.

First tip: Don’t just send your new blog post emails to your entire list. Segment your list into smaller groups, first. Then, target each group by their interests.

This will make your emails far more personalized, which readers really appreciate, according to research from Dynamic Yield.

Plus, email segmentation is a proven way to increase your email opens and clicks, and decrease your bounces and unsubscribe rate. This MailChimp study compared segmented email campaigns to non-segmented campaigns. The segmented campaigns performed much better:

For example, segmented campaigns got 14.31% more opens and 100.95% more clicks than non-segmented email campaigns.

Some examples of email list segments may include:

• Splitting up your list by demographics (where people who live in the same general area are lumped together)
• Splitting it up by gender
• By age groups
• By education level
• By job industry

To learn how to split up your email list into smaller segments, read this guide by HubSpot or these tips from Optinmonster. Using email segmentation is how to promote a new blog post strategically.

2. Did You Mention a Specific Brand/Influencer in a Post? Email Them

In most well-crafted blog posts, you will be citing research from other sources or mentioning other brands, influencers, or industry experts.

These links, citations, and mentions are a perfect opportunity for blog promotion. Crack open your email and send your new post over to the person/brand/influencer you gave a nod to.

This is a great promotion technique, especially if:

• You furthered the topic discussion in some way that might be useful to them
• You promoted the person/brand or gave them an accolade

For best results, make this about being useful, not about being spammy. If you send an annoying email like this, without any context…

“Hey! Check out my awesome new blog post! You won’t regret it!”

…You’ll get ignored, or worse, marked as spam. Instead, make a point to be thoughtful, intentional, and useful. This is as much about relationship-building as it is about blog promotion.

Look at this example written by Brian Dean for inspiration – it’s simple, relevant, to the point, and personal (this is how to promote a new blog post using networking power!):

3. Write Your Emails the Right Way

In keeping with the above point, you should also focus on writing your emails the right way.

Here are a few things you shouldn’t do:

• Don’t clutter your email with babbling unrelated to the topic. Get to the point.
• Don’t be overly promotional.
• Don’t be impersonal. People WANT personalization, remember? (See tip #3).

And here are a few things you should do:

• Be friendly, open, and genuine. People can see through a ploy for attention from a mile away. Aim to be helpful and informative, not promotional and spammy.
• Use your voice. Be you.
• When in doubt, keep it short.

For more tips on creating readable emails, check out our post, How to Write Content for Email Marketing.

How to Promote a New Blog Post on Social Media

Social media is a major channel you can use to promote your new blog posts. Follow these tips to get the word out there.

1. Use Instagram Stories

Instagram Stories are HUGE! According to data from Statista, over 400 million users are active on Stories daily. Plus, the IG Stories feature is twice as popular as Snapchat.

Its high-use factor means it’s a great channel to promote your blog posts. Here’s how:

If you have 10k followers, you can add a link directly to your story. The best part? It only takes a few seconds to record yourself talking about your new blog and add the link.

Don’t know how to use Instagram Stories? This IG Stories guide from Later covers every aspect for the newbie.

2. Cross-Post to Each Platform You’re On

Don’t just post a link to your new blog on one social media platform. Create unique posts for ALL of your accounts. This is how to promote a new blog post to get it in front of more people.

This is necessary because your entire audience doesn’t live on one social channel. They’re spread out.

Some people use Facebook but not Twitter; some are on Instagram and Twitter but not Facebook; and some people prefer LinkedIn exclusively for networking. Create posts for each channel to get the most traction and hit every type of social media user in your audience.

3. Plug Your New Blog on Relevant Twitter Chats

If you join a Twitter chat, you’re welcome to share a link or two as long as it relates to the topic and adds value. I’ve shared links from our blog relevant to the topic at hand in a Twitter chat and earned a lot of clicks.

A7

I covered 5 critical #SEO trends in my new @ExpWriters Write Blog today

1. Be Mobile-Ready for Mobile-First Indexing
2. Featured Snippets Rankings Will Go Up in Value
3. Create the Highest-Quality Content

…Read all 5 trends https://t.co/T8cPkqUjBS#ContentWritingChat pic.twitter.com/t6IxIBsyaV

Relevancy and usefulness are key, here. If sharing your link in a Twitter chat doesn’t hit either checkbox, don’t share it.

4. Add the Link to Your New Blog on Your Profiles

One often-overlooked place to promote your blog is on the main information panel on your social media profiles.

This is what it looks like on Instagram, using @cmicontent as an example:

On Twitter, too:

And even on Pinterest:

On these platforms, in particular, the featured link is prominent. This is a perfect spot to plug the link to your newest blog post, as anyone visiting your account will no doubt see it immediately.

5. Share Your New Blog Multiple Times, at Optimum Times, on Fast-Moving Feeds

Some social media feeds move fast – so fast, lots of your followers may not even see the link you posted to your new blog post.

For these feeds – think Twitter and Facebook, especially – it’s a good idea to post about your new blog multiple times the day you publish. Here’s a good rule of thumb for how to promote a new blog post:

• Post once, right after you publish the blog

• Post a few more times, a few hours apart

Keep a few things in mind to make sure more people see your post:

• The best times to post on your chosen platform based on research

• The best times to post based on your audience’s preferences and habits

For example, SproutSocial analyzed their own customer data to determine the best general times for posting to the biggest social media platforms, like Facebook:

CoSchedule did research on this topic, too, and came up with some benchmarks for each platform:

Don’t consider this type of research your posting Bible, though. Take into account your audience, and try experimenting with post times to see if you can find your personal sweet spot.

6. Use Those #Hashtags and DO @ People

Another factor to remember when composing social media posts promoting your newest blog: Use hashtags and mention relevant people!

It’s surprising how much more engagement your post gets when you include some well-chosen hashtags and mentions.

This is a good example of hashtag usage on Instagram from a candle company, Frostbeard Studio:

And here’s another post they shared that includes a mention of who originally created it:

Not sure which hashtags to use? This post from AdWeek has some excellent tips for finding the right ones for your posts.

7. Share Your New Blog to Your Social Media Groups and Communities

Final tip for how to promote a new blog post on social media:

Share that puppy with your groups and communities!

That includes Facebook groups, group chats, discussions, and forums. Especially if you’ve been engaging in your groups for a while, you’re likely to have a whole team of people ready to spread your post around the web like there’s no tomorrow.

When it counts, lean into your networks and use them to your advantage. Again, relationship-building always pays off.

How to Promote a New Blog Post with Smart Tools

Beyond email and social media, you may be scratching your head for ideas on how to promote a new blog post.

Good news – there are tools out there for that.

1. Use Quuu Promote or Zest

Want your content pushed out to more people? Tools like Quuu Promote or Zest make it ridiculously easy.

You have to apply and pay, but these are high-quality “sources” of content for marketers. That means you’re getting in each tool’s high-quality promotion queue, where they only approve the best of the best for promoting to their audiences. (Check out Quuu’s promotion criteria to see what I mean. It’s strict!)

These useful tools qualify content, which is good in a world of 3+ million published blogs/day. They help separate the wheat from the chaff – and YOUR blog posts could be the wheat that gets promoted to subscribers. (Just make sure your content is the best of the best – scroll back to the top of this post, to “Make Your Blog the Best Version of Itself” to get my drift.)

2. Curate Your Blog Posts in a Content Hub

Content curation is a great way to do a few brand-promoting activities at once.

• It builds you up as a thought leader because you’ll be sharing and highlighting the best content that catches your eye (as well as your own high-authority content, which will get the benefit of association).
• You’ll build an asset that both supplements and boosts your own content and blog posts. (For instance, you know video does really well with readers, but you don’t produce a lot of it yourself. In this case, you can curate relevant video content from other sources to supplement your own blog posts.)

There are plenty of good tools out there for creating content hubs:

• To create one to host on your own website, try Scoop.it. Here’s an example of a content hub they created called “Content marketing resources”:

• Or, try Flipboard to create curated boards with your blog posts and related content from around the industry. Look at this Flipboard from Copyblogger

3. Add Social Sharing Buttons to Your Posts

What happens when your readers are on your website, reading your content, and they want to share it?

If you add social sharing buttons to each post, they’ll have an easy way to do just that with a few clicks. (Much, MUCH easier than copying and pasting your link into Facebook or Twitter.)

A good tool for the job is Monarch, a WordPress plugin. It gives you lots of options for button placement and design.

Bonus: These buttons also make your blog posts look snazzy and professional. Win-win!

How to Promote a New Blog Post: Done and Done

This is where our exhaustive answer to “how to promote a new blog post” ends, but…

How far your posts go from here is up to you.

Blog promotion takes a lot of work, but it’s worth it. You’ll help MORE potential leads and customers find your amazing posts, which will lead to more traction for your brand.

Don’t let those promotion opportunities fall by the wayside – dig in and take advantage. They’re not difficult, and they WILL lead to better ROI for your content babies.

One more thing, before you go…

One Final Tip for How to Promote a New Blog Post

Don’t outsource TOO MUCH of your promotion and creation.

Help and delegation are good, but remember that you need to be the idea originator for all your blogs.

I can’t stress this enough! You promoting your own content should be natural and authentic.

You can absolutely hire someone to help schedule and post for you, but make sure you’re in the thought process! In short, don’t outsource the thought in thought leadership – that needs to come from you.

How do you plan to go forth and promote your new blog posts? Let us know your game plan in the comments!